L’Olivo Santa Barbara is a blog about cultural similarities and differences between Italy and the United States, with some emphasis on Santa Barbara, California. The blog addresses history, travel, film, music, art, food, and people and animals. Following an introduction in English, you can choose to read each post in Italian or English. Comments are welcome, as are ideas for future posts.

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The region of Calabria, in the toe of Italy’s boot, is famous for many foods—from produce to seafood to the local hearty red wine. There is also the cipolla rossa di Tropea,the prized red onion of the east coast of the region, and an ice cream dessert, the tartufo, that I featured in a pictorial post of August 31, 2017. Recently Jacopo Giacopuzzi, the Veronese – turned – Santa Barbarian pianist, introduced me to ‘nduja (pronounced in Calabrian as DOOJ-ah).

‘Nduja is a spicy, spreadable pork salami from Calabria, which is made from parts of the pig, such as the shoulder, belly and head. (The jowls are used for guanciale.) Spices and roasted hot red peppers give it its characteristic red color and fiery taste. Meat, fat, and peppers are ground finely to become a paste and then put into orba, a traditional casing, and smoked with wood from olive and locust trees. It is then aged briefly and can last for over a year. As with other food dishes, salami are often the result of something delicious created from leftovers.

The origins of ‘nduja are uncertain. It could be from Medieval times. It could be Spanish, not only because of the use of chilies, but also because of the similarity to the Spanish cured sausage, sobrasada. The name is probably a derivative of the French andouille. When the French fought the Spanish in southern Italy in the early 19thcentury, they may have helped to develop it then.

Originally it was used only as an accompaniment to vegetables, ripe cheese, or on slices of bread. Today it is showing up everywhere: in pasta dishes, on pizza, even stuffed in squid. It now has a DOP (denominazione d’origine protetta)designation, which ensures that products are locally grown and packaged. In the last few years there has been an increased demand across Europe for ‘nduja. In Britain it is even showing up on restaurant menus and on supermarket shelves, like those of Marks and Spencer. And thanks to places like Eataly in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, it is also coming to the United States.

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While walking around Venice and admiring its architecture, you can’t help but notice the beautiful, architectural wells in almost every large square (campo). They were ingenious works of art and engineering that were designed to supply drinkable water to inhabitants who, ironically, were surrounded by water.

The wells of Venice, vere da pozzo,were not true wells as they did not draw water from underground aquifers. They were underground cisterns designed to collect and filter precious rainwater, and served Venetians from the 5thcentury to about 1884 when water was piped in from the mainland.

The construction was both complex and expensive. Highly skilled builders known as pozzeri,along with bricklayers, supervised the digging of the cisterns. Sons followed fathers and grandfathers into the business. It was an important trade and highly valued.

First a large area was selected; hence wells were built in the campi or corti of Venice. The area was dug to a depth of 5-6 meters below ground and sea level. The recess was lined with a waterproof layer of clay to prevent infiltration of salt water and dispersion of fresh water from the tank. In the center a tall tunnel (cassone or canna da pozzo) formed the well shaft; this is where the local inhabitants dipped their buckets to obtain fresh water. The rest of the recess was filled with sand and gravel. Each stratum consisted of a different size stone creating a graduated filter. Then 2 to 4 manholes (pilelle) were built close to the edge of the reservoir to collect the rainwater as far from the center tunnel as possible so that the water could be purified through the various layers of sand and gravel.

Well head at Cà d’Oro

The crowning glory was the vera, the well-head, which was a work of art in its own right. Early ones were built with stones taken from ancient Roman ruins: capitals, pillar sections, and cinerary urns were adapted for use as vere. The Republic encouraged the aristocracy to participate in the construction of rainwater wells; in return, the family’s coat of arms or inscriptions could be carved into the vera. Venice’s Administration also developed a system to check and maintain the wells.

Doge’s Palace well head

Wells were capped with heavy, iron covers and locked for most of the day. Sometimes only the local priest kept the key to unlock them twice a day, morning and evening, at the toll of the “well bell” calling residents to fill their buckets. At the height of Venice’s prosperity, there were over 6,500 wells. While no wells are in use today, about 600 remain in the Venetian campias a testament to the history and art of this engineering marvel, which perhaps could be adapted today in areas of the world suffering from drought.

Rainwater well in the cloister of Trinity inside the monastery of Santa Maria dei Frari

Dating back to 1545, the botanical garden of Padua is considered the oldest in the world. With more than 6,000 types of plants, it is still famous today for the cultivation of medical plants, from which many natural remedies are extracted. Also cultivated here are poisonous plants and valuable plants, which thieves often try to steal. Some historians attribute the first botanical garden to the one in Pisa, which was founded in the preceding year, but in another place than where it currently is. In any case, the record is in Italy.

The Oldest Pharmacy in Europe

It is the Officina profumo-famaceutica of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. Testimonies dating back to 1221 attest to how the Dominican friars in a part of their convent, now at the gates of Florence, dispensed distillates of curative herbs. The current perfumery opened to the public in 1612. Other European cities like Tallin in Estonia and Dubrovnik in Croatia claim to have the record, but the work of the Florentine pharmacy has never been interrupted.

The Oldest Library in the World

Founded in 517 AC, the Biblioteca Capitolare of Verona celebrated 15 centuries in 2017. It is the oldest library in the world open to the public since its inception. There are more ancient libraries, like that in Alessandria, Egypt, but none has remained open to the public for as long as the library in Verona. Here they studied the son of Charlemagne, Pipino, and then Dante Alighieri and Francesco Petrarch. The library also houses the famous Veronese Indovinello, a puzzle from the eighth century that many scholars think contains the oldest text in the Italian vernacular.

The Oldest Active Western University

Founded in 1088, the University of Bologna has never ceased teaching. Three popes, many businessmen, and various Italian politicians are among the famous graduates. Even Oxford University, which was founded in 1096, is forced to cede primacy to Bologna, which has the nickname “the learned.” The oldest educational institution in the world that is still functioning, however, is the University of Karueein, founded in 859, in Fez, Morocco.

The Oldest Bank in the World that Still Exists Today

It is the Monte dei Paschi of Siena in Tuscany, founded by the General Council of the Republic of Siena in 1472. At the time, Siena was a republic and the bank was started to offer leans to the poor or needy. Another record of the bank was reached in 1624 when the Grand Duke Ferdinand II de Medici laid the foundation of deposit protection systems that are used today to give confidence to savers in the world banking system. For centuries, the bank has financed the local economy through businesses, charities, and of course the famous Palio di Siena.

The Oldest Wine Cellar in the World

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest wine cellar is located in Ferrara and opened in 1435. At the time it was called Hostaria del Chiuchiolino from “ciuc,” which means drunk, but today it has changed its name. Among its historic patrons were Titian, Copernicus, and Ariosto.

The Most Ancient Family Business

The Marinelli Foundry of Agnone in Molise is the oldest family business in Europe, and one of the oldest companies in the world still in operation. It was founded in the year 1,000 and for generations has continued to produce bells in an artisanal way, just as it has done in antiquity.

The Most Ancient Map in the Western World

Perhaps. It was discovered in Soleto in Puglia by a Belgian archaeologist from the University of Montpellier in 2003. It is a fragment from a black earthenware vase that, according to estimates, was more than 2,500 years old and which was engraved with drawings and names of Italian cities in Greek and Messapian. The representation depicts a coastal stretch of the Salento peninsula. Some historians, however, have expressed doubts about its dating, because the cities are referred to as points as in modern maps and not with the typical houses of ancient maps.

One of the Oldest Cities in the World

Matera in Basilicata is known throughout the world as “the city of stones.” It has cave-houses carved into the rock of a gorge created by the Gravina stream. These cave dwellings are believed to be among the first human settlements in Italy, dating back to the Paleolithic era (about 9,000 years ago). Since then, until the 1950s, the stones have always been inhabited, which makes Matera one of the oldest inhabited cites ever.